


in the current, moving forward

by spellingmynamewrong



Category: Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1920s, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - The Great Gatsby Fusion, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:34:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25586761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spellingmynamewrong/pseuds/spellingmynamewrong
Summary: In the scorching summer of 1926, Remus Lupin—war veteran, Yale alumnus, starving artist—moves to West Egg, Long Island to write.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 14
Kudos: 69





	in the current, moving forward

**Author's Note:**

> this is just a very self-indulgent fusion with _the great gatsby_ , though you really don’t need to read gatsby to understand it. i can promise you, though, that no one dies, because i really do want the best for remus and sirius.
> 
> also, a good soundtrack to this fic is "the last great american dynasty." stream folklore if you haven't yet; it's a beauty of an album.

**i. the less fashionable egg**

Ahead of Remus is the cottage, small and shrouded in vines and leaves. Derelict, a less charitable observer would put it, without being wrong at all. Fruit trees in summer bloom serve as the house’s protectors, small, round apples and plump peaches adorning their branches. Weeds line the dirt path leading up to the cottage’s front door, making the structure seem overgrown and claustrophobic at once. 

It’s beautiful. And Remus doesn’t need a mansion. After all, he’s here to write.

For two years, Remus has been writing. Really, he has been writing for eight years—it has been eight years since Yale, since he graduated with a degree in English. But then the war came, and there was no writing to be done at all, because Remus has never been a poet, and even if he was, he could not write of poppies, of bodies lying in Flanders Fields without feeling stale bile rise up in his throat. And the war takes things from you, things like the full use of your left leg and your father and your ability to eke out more than a single word on a page. So Remus has been writing for two years—in London, in Berlin, in Chicago. And now, Great Neck, Long Island. Here, he will find his fortune, or simply fail again. 

It’s no matter, really. He’s used to failure by now.

He strolls up to the cottage, cane and suitcase in hand. His limp is less noticeable now, and for that, he is grateful. The door creaks open, revealing a small parlor. Dusty furniture resides in it, and the carpet’s vibrant colors have been washed away by age. _Welcome home,_ he thinks, and breathes in the June breeze. 

**ii. anchored balloons**

He has neighbors. He should have known this, of course. 

The knock on his door came the first day of his second week in West Egg. He opened it to find a man in a well-tailored suit with a jolly smile standing on the other side. 

“Hello,” the man said, extending a hand. “I’m Ted Tonks. This cottage has been empty for a while, you see, so when Andie and I learned that someone had moved in, we knew we had to meet them. We live on the other side of the bay, in East Egg, and we’d be glad to have you over for dinner tomorrow night.”

After a brief moment of contemplation, he had said yes, because the writing wasn’t coming along and he couldn’t live off digestive biscuits and tea forever, and Ted had seemed kind enough.

So Remus is off to dinner with a family he has never met, in an outfit barely presentable enough to be called a suit. When he arrives at the Tonks’ home, a sprawling Tudor mansion with Roman fountains and a stable, he is barely surprised by its opulence. He’s known for a while that his tiny cottage is an anomaly, a nugget of silver amongst chunks of diamond. 

The woman who answers the doorbell is beautiful in the way he imagines Greek deities must have been, once upon a time—dark curls tumbling around her shoulders, eyes of piercing blue, a small smile stretching across her face that holds secrets no mortal could ever begin to understand. “I’m Andromeda, but you can call me Andie,” she says warmly. “I’m sure Ted has told you, but we’ve been wondering about you for ages—that cottage is haunted, some people say, so Ted said you must be quite a brave soul to move into it.”

“Oh,” Remus says, because he’s never heard of it being haunted before, but never mind. “Well, if it is, it’ll make a good story. I’m in need of those.”

Andie smiles again, but this one is a more genuine one, wide and appreciative. “Well, come on in! Dinner will be ready soon, and you can meet my daughter while you’re at it.”

Andie leads him into the sitting room, where they find two women in long white dresses laughing, pushing each other playfully. The first has short, rippling curls, and the second has golden hair that tumbles down to her waist. They look a bit like angels who have lost their wings, visions of barely marred holiness in the warm afternoon sun. “My daughter, Nymphadora, and her friend Marlene,” Andie says, by way of an introduction. 

“Please, please call me Tonks,” the one with short hair says, rolling her eyes. Up closer, she has the same piercing blue eyes as her mother, but her smile is all her father’s, jolly and open and trusting. “As I’ve told my mother an innumerable amount of times, Nymphadora is a ridiculous name.”

“And I’ve told her it’s a beautiful name she should treasure,” Andie sniffs. He has a feeling this is a conversation that has been repeated for the better part of a decade.

“Hello,” Remus says. “I’m Remus Lupin.”

“The writer!” Tonks brightens. “Oh, it’s so good to have you. We’re going mad in this house. It’s dreadfully boring here, and my mother won’t let me out of her sight. She thinks I’ll be whisked away by Hades, you see, if I’m out in the fields alone for too long, and then she won’t be able to marry me off to a gorgeous Englishman like she wants.”

“Nymphadora!” Andie says, but she’s smiling. “Well, dinner should be ready about now, so let’s go make merry in the dining room, shall we?”

“If we must,” Tonks sighs, winking at him and taking him by the arm. Remus has a feeling that his life has just changed, and he can’t quite pinpoint if it’s for the better or the worse. 

**iii. a little party**

It’s nearing seven in the evening, and Remus is attending a party.

He’s not going alone, of course. On his arm again will be Tonks, who has latched onto him as though he is her sole escape from her monotonous, luxurious life. Why she finds an impoverished failure of an author to be interesting, he cannot begin to understand. 

He received the invitation to the party two days back, when a man in a uniform emerged from a glimmering Cadillac and knocked on his door. The invitation had been embossed in gold and enclosed in a shimmering red envelope. Immediately, he had known who it was from. Only one man gave such grand parties every night, after all, and that man lived next door to Remus in an ostentatious mansion which brimmed with guests and champagne and the starriness of life. The only surprise had been that Remus received an invitation at all—he was under the impression that the guests at these parties simply came and went at their fancies. 

He looks at himself in the mirror, studying his suit—not his own, of course. When Remus had decided to attend the party, he had rung up the Tonks, thinking of their daughter’s complaints of being cooped up in their home. Immediately, she had agreed to attend, and her mother had forced one of Ted’s suits onto Remus, claiming that he simply _couldn’t_ attend one of Black’s famous parties looking so threadbare. Remus had almost been pleased enough to not feel offended. 

He hears a knock on his door and opens it to find Tonks on the other side, incandescent in a gold shift dress embossed with crystals and strings of pearls winding around her neck. “Ready to go?” she asks, leaning on the doorway. “Oh, I’ve been dying to attend one of these parties again for months, but my mother would _never_ let me go alone—too many dirty old men there, she says. As if any of them would be interested in me! They can barely see past their wallets.”

Remus laughs. “I’m ready,” he says. The walk to Black’s mansion is short, and already, there are guests streaming through the gates—men and women in fancy hats and evening gowns, women with red lipstick and pale pink lipstick and no lipstick at all, men in pinstriped suits and collared shirts and what look to be old pajamas. 

“Oh, this is just as wonderful as I remember,” Tonks breathes, catching sight of the mansion. “Look at all these people! I wonder where they’re from—they can’t all be from the city, can they?”

The dulcet tones of jazz flood the air as they make their way into the garden, which is stuffed with round tables, mismatched chairs, and a makeshift stage. A small orchestra has been shoved into a corner, and a woman wearing a gold headdress is crooning into a microphone, _I’ve found my love in Avalon, oh yeah._ It all feels vaguely fantastical.

Tonks seems to catch sight of someone and squeals. “Oh, Remus, you _must_ meet Dorcas, she’s simply delightful. We play golf together sometimes, and I’ve never met anyone with a swing as strong as hers.”

He lets himself be dragged along by Tonks, who weaves him through the crush of people expertly and onto the balcony until they find Dorcas, a woman who looks to be around the same age as Tonks and has brown skin and laughing eyes. They settle into an easy conversation about music and golf and nothing at all, and Remus relaxes, letting the cool evening breeze wash over him as he glances down at the attendees in the garden, spinning short stories about their lives. 

That is, until he hears Tonks squeal again. “Sirius!”

Remus looks up to find the most beautiful man he’s ever seen. 

The man has long, dark hair that falls gracefully around his shoulders, grey-blue eyes, and is wearing an impeccably tailored suit. There’s an undeniable hint of mischief in his eyes, and his smile when he sees Tonks is wide and welcoming. Wildly, he thinks of Delacroix, all rich, broad strokes and untamed beauty. 

“My dear Nymphadora,” the man—Sirius—croons, and Tonks, laughing, pushes him away. Sirius looks up, glancing briefly at Dorcas before fixating his eyes on Remus. Under his heavy stare, Remus shifts uncomfortably. 

“Sirius, this is _Remus,_ ” Tonks says, gesturing at him. “He’s a writer!”

“I know,” Sirius says simply, and then, clearing his throat, “Tonks, would you mind if I steal him away for a bit?”

“Oh, of _course,_ ” she says, pushing Remus forward. “Go, go! Have fun. Dorcas and I will make do ourselves.”

He should stay, keep watch over Tonks and the party. But he lets himself follow Sirius out of the balcony, down a set of winding stairs, and into what looks to be a library, which is empty of guests save for one valiant pianist, plunking out discordant notes on the grand piano. 

“Oh, that’s just Dedalus,” Sirius says dismissively. “He’ll be here all night, feel free to ignore him.”

Remus nods, and they settle into an uncomfortable silence. He takes the time to look around the library, which might hold the most complete collection of books he’s ever seen in his life. The shelves tower over him, and he itches to simply grab the closest book to him and curl up in a corner forever, reading his life away. It wouldn’t be a bad life to lead.

“You can borrow anything you like,” Sirius says, and Remus startles. 

“Isn’t this library Black’s?” he asks tentatively, and Sirius laughs.

 _“I’m_ Black,” he says, smiling. “Sirius Black.” Remus tries his best to keep his shock from being visible. When he pictured Black, he expected someone older, someone middle-aged, someone like Ted Tonks, perhaps, not the Romantic vision he sees in front of him now. 

“Still, I couldn’t. You’re far too kind,” Remus says, but Sirius shakes his head.

“I don’t read them anyway,” he says. “It’s my family’s old collection, you see. I keep it around for guests like you, who’ll actually make use of it. My father was very fond of Dumas; I believe we have an original copy of _The Three Musketeers_ lying around here somewhere. If you find it, you’re free to have it. I insist.”

“Just because I’m a writer doesn’t mean you have to foist books upon me, you know,” Remus says, amused, and Sirius rolls his eyes.

“Of course I know that,” he says. “But I saw the way you looked at this library, you know. Someone might as well use it if I won’t.”

“Why don’t you read the books?” Remus asks. He can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t, with entire worlds at their fingertips, just waiting to be opened. 

Sirius shrugs. “Other things to do, I suppose. Make music. Go out on my motorboat. Throw parties.” At this, he grins wickedly. 

“I prefer books to parties,” Remus admits.

“Well, I can see that now,” Sirius says. “Good thing you brought Tonks along, then—she’s always a right laugh.”

“How do you know her?”

“Oh, she came here with her mother about a year ago, outrageously drunk, and managed to mistake me for her cousin,” Sirius says, laughing. “It embarrassed her mother immensely, but Tonks is a good sort.”

“She is,” Remus agrees, thinking of her easy laughter and warm gaze.

“Are you two—” Sirius makes a crude gesture, and Remus laughs.

“No, no,” he says. “We’re just friends. I’m too old for her anyway.”

At this, Sirius snorts. “You’re what, thirty? That’s hardly too old for anything.”

“Too old,” Remus repeats, and Sirius sighs. 

“You’re never too old to love,” he says simply. “Though I must admit, I’m glad you aren’t in love with Tonks.”

“Oh?”

“Her mother would rip you to shreds,” Sirius says sagely.

“I’ve met Andie, and she seemed perfectly nice.”

“Yes, but you didn’t meet her as a suitor,” Sirius says. “They’re very different things.”

“And you would know from experience?”

“God no,” Sirius shudders. “Forget Andie tearing me to shreds—Tonks would do that herself. No, she told me herself about it, how her mother chased off a perfectly nice young man named Charlie because his hair was too long and he was studying reptiles instead of law.”

“Pity for him,” Remus says, and Sirius nods. 

“Pity for all of us,” Sirius says, sighing. “That we must exist in a world where those we love are rarely able to love us back.” 

Remus nods, and they sit in silence again, though this time, it feels more comfortable. That is, until Dedalus begins butchering Mozart’s Sonata in C Major on the piano, and Sirius winces. 

“We’d best be out of here, I think. I’ll get a headache from his playing if we stay here any longer, and you should find Tonks before she manages to knock over a priceless vase or the like,” he says. “But you should come back here sometime. We’ll take the motorboat out for a spin; the water’s nice and cool this time of year. It’ll be grand, Remus.”

The look in his eyes is open and earnest, and Remus nods, vaguely aware that with it, he is sealing his fate.

**iv. old sport**

He goes to the next party, and the next, and the next. Each time, he meets Sirius in the library. Each time, they talk about art, about literature (of which Sirius knows far too much about for a self-proclaimed illiterate), about music and life and love. It is a very different kind of friendship than what he has with Tonks—than what he has had with anyone before, in truth—but he feels exceedingly grateful for it. 

One afternoon, they take the motorboat out, relishing the wind on their cheeks as they speed across the bay. Remus lets his hand graze the water, feels the sting of the salt on his bare legs. It’s not until they reach the middle of the bay that Sirius switches off the engine. Without its constant murmur, the only sounds for miles are the slow rumble of the bay’s waves and the distant caws of seagulls.

“Do you know why I like you, Remus?” Sirius says suddenly, and Remus shifts in his seat.

“Because I empty out your library?” he asks wryly.

“Because we’re alike,” Sirius says, and Remus almost laughs. He looks at the man beside him, with his perfect hair and starry smile and impeccable suits, and wonders what on Earth they could possibly have in common. 

“Like what?” Remus says, deciding to humor him.

“Well, for one, there’s the war,” Sirius says, looking suddenly grave. He pulls out a pack of cigarettes, lighting one and offering another to Remus, who shakes his head. 

“I didn’t know you fought in it.”

“Who didn’t? Pro patria mori, nobleness walks in our ways again, and all that, after all,” he says bitterly, taking a long drag from his cigarette. “Tenth Field Artillery Regiment. I fought in France. I expect you did too?”

“I did,” Remus says. “I joined up after college. It seemed like the right thing to do.”

“The right thing to do,” Sirius snorts. “Tell me, Remus, what’s right about slaughtering boys who’ve barely learned to do their sums? What’s right about gassing down rows of _humans,_ choking the life out of their lungs? What’s right about any of that?” He’s staring into the distance now, and Remus has a feeling that he’s not looking for an answer. 

“Nothing,” Remus says softly, and he thinks of the trenches, the cries of his fellow soldiers in the night, cries for help and family and girlfriends left at home, thinks of hulking tanks rolling into Cambrai, thinks of the stench of the battlefield, something rotten and dark and terrible,

“Well, write to Coolidge and tell him that, please,” Sirius says. He bites his bottom lip and sighs. “My brother died in it, you know.”

“I’m sorry.”

“He was an idiot,” Sirius continues. “Hadn’t even graduated yet. He was at Harvard when the Lusitania sank. Read about it in the newspaper and joined up the next day. My mother always buttered him up, calling him her little hero. He died in Germany, back in ‘17. We never buried a body.”

“What was his name?”

“Regulus. Little Reggie, always a fool.” Sirius stubs out his cigarette on the railing of the motorboat and tosses it overboard. “And who did you lose?”

“My father. He was too old to fight properly, but he insisted on it anyway,” Remus says. “How did you know?”

“We all have that look about us,” Sirius says. “Hoping that they’ll come back somehow, that the generals got it all wrong, that they’re still out there somewhere, searching for a way home.”

**v. second cousin to the devil**

There are rumors about Sirius, of course. A young man living alone in a mansion will always be hounded by rumors, no matter how many soirees and galas he throws, no matter how many crates of champagne and oranges are brought in by his servants, no matter how many politicians and ladies and beggars and drunkards show up on his doorstep, endless night after endless night. 

Some say he’s on the run from an unwanted marriage to an heiress, that he’s been living under an assumed name all this time. Some say he’s a disgraced aristocrat, disowned by his disapproving family. Some say he’s a bootlegger—where else would the money, the mansion, the booze come from? 

Some say he’s searching for a lost love, a beautiful woman he was parted from by the war and time, and he throws the parties for her, hoping that one night, she will appear in his grand halls with a delicate, mysterious smile and rise from the masses like Aphrodite. 

Remus can’t say which of these rumors, if any, is true. But he does know one incontrovertible, indisputable fact: secretly, Sirius Black is terribly, terribly sad. 

**vi. the green light**

Another evening, another party. Tonks brings Marlene along, this time, who gleefully piles her masses of golden hair atop her head and buries herself in pearls and diamond bracelets. In her stark white dress with gold detail, she is utterly beautiful, a Botticelli in the flesh. 

They make Remus over too, slicking back his hair and scrounging up Ted’s sharpest suit, one in navy blue with large brass buttons. Marlene insists on painting the corners of his eyes with flecks of gold paint, and though he tries, laughing, to push her away, she manages to do so anyway. 

The party is in full swing by the time they arrive, champagne flasks clinking against each other and the low thrum of violins and cellos ushering in guests. It takes almost no time for Remus to find Sirius, who has his long hair tied back loosely and is chatting away to an elderly woman on the staircase. 

“Sirius!” Tonks calls. Remus watches as Sirius lays his eyes on them, says a few more words to the woman, and then walks over, a smile on his face. As he draws closer, his mouth falls open, and he looks stunned. 

“This is Marlene,” Tonks says, and Marlene waves, something unreadable in her eyes, as though she’s on the verge of uncovering a long-kept secret.

“McKinnon?” Sirius asks, and now, Marlene looks shaken too.

“I should have known it was you when Tonks said there was a man named Black throwing parties every night. You’ve always had a flair for the dramatic,” she says, stepping forward. “It’s good to see you again.”

“My God, I thought you were dead,” he breathes, and Marlene shakes her head.

“I thought the same of you,” she says. “I’m so sorry about James and Lily.”

“Yes, well,” Sirius says, looking unbearably sad. “I’m sorry about your family. The flu took too many good people.”

Tonks looks at him, narrowing her eyes, as if to ask, _do you know what they’re going on about?_ Remus simply shrugs. The conversation is as foreign to him as it must be to her.

And then, as Marlene and Sirius embrace, first cautiously, then warmly, like two old friends, the pieces suddenly fall into place. He thinks of the rumor that Sirius throws these parties not just for anyone, but for someone in particular—someone he loved, a woman from his past, a beautiful woman who disappeared. He has never taken much stock in it, of course, but now, looking at Marlene—her radiant beauty, the flush of her cheeks, the soft curve of her wine-red lips—he thinks, for the first time, that it could be true. Yes, Sirius is in love with Marlene, and he has thrown these parties, all these parties, only for her. And finally, she is here. 

Quickly, he links arms with Tonks and pulls her aside. She frowns at him, but she lets him lead her away from Sirius and Marlene. He’ll explain it all to her later, once they’re in the garden. He thinks again of their embrace and swallows hard. Incomprehensibly, he feels as though he has just been crushed by an invisible boulder.

**vii. enchanted objects**

“Why did you run off?”

Remus looks up. For the better part of the night, he has been in the library, paging through books and then, for lack of interest, abandoning them upon a coffee table. The pile of books has grown almost unwieldy. Standing above, of course, is Sirius, whose eyes are dark and guarded, with a hint of anger in them.

“Marlene,” he says simply. He thinks, for a moment, that Sirius might understand, but instead, he only looks more bemused. 

“What _about_ Marlene?” 

“I’ve—” How can he even begin to explain the rumors, the way Sirius had looked at Marlene, like she was a spectre come back from the dead? “I’ve heard some people say that you throw these parties for a woman.”

“Oh?” Sirius cocks an eyebrow, but he looks less angry now than amused. “Do go on.”

“They say you’ve been waiting for her to return, that you were in love when you were young. That you’ve been searching for her for years, and you realized that if you threw these parties, that if you told everyone for miles around to come to them, that one day, she might show up, and you would be in love again.”

“I’m glad you think me interesting enough to be such a Byronic hero,” Sirius says. “But none of it’s true, I’m afraid. There’s no woman. Marlene is—just an old friend.”

“Well, that much is clear.” His words come out crosser than he intends for them to be.

“I should tell you the whole story, shouldn’t I,” Sirius says. 

“Yes, you probably should.”

And in the next hour, the tale spills out of Sirius, first slowly, and then like a flood when an old dam has finally broken.

In the autumn of Sirius Black’s eighteenth year, he had headed up to Cambridge from Connecticut to study mathematics at Harvard, just like his father and his grandfather. There, he had met James Potter, who was studying history, and they quickly formed a strong, lasting friendship. Mere months into their scholarship, James fell deeply in love with a Wellesley girl named Lily Evans, who had fiery red hair and was determined to never give James the time of day.

“He became an utter fool around her,” Sirius says. “Couldn’t keep his words or head straight. Eventually, though, he managed to convince her that he was actually worth talking to, and they began courting in our second year.”

Back then, Marlene, a fellow Wellesley student, had been Lily’s best friend. She had a sharp tongue and an even sharper wit, and Sirius grew fond of her, though they never courted. 

“She had no interest in me anyway. She wanted to be a writer, and she said I would only hold her back from reaching her full potential.”

Two days after Sirius and James graduated from Harvard, James married Lily in a quiet ceremony at his family’s house in the Hamptons. Mere weeks later, the war broke out, and both James and Sirius enlisted.

“We fought in the same regiment. Miraculously, neither of us emerged with anything more than a scratch. We were lucky in that way, unlike poor Regulus, though James said it was less luck than Lily’s blessing: before we shipped out to France, she made us swear that we would come back alive and whole.”

And they had. They returned to New York in November of 1918, where Lily and James bought a townhouse on the Upper West Side. Sirius bought his own apartment mere blocks away, using the money from his family’s fortune, which had fallen to him, the sole remaining heir, when his parents perished from the Spanish flu. A few months later, Lily got pregnant, and in late July of 1919, Harry Potter was born, a healthy baby boy. But it couldn’t stay perfect forever.

“James had always wanted to go into politics. He was an optimist. He believed in real change, improving conditions for the poor, supporting immigrant families, and the like. Naturally, many people didn’t like that.”

James ran for Congress in 1920. After a hard-fought campaign, he won the primary election. A day later, he and Lily were found murdered in their own home.

No arrests were ever made. There were suspicions, of course—some people thought it might be a man named Riddle, who few ever saw but was believed to have influence over a great number of politicians—but they could never pin him down with evidence. 

“Harry lived. Whoever did it was still human enough to not kill a baby. I tried to take him in, but the State wouldn’t let me. They sent him to his aunt and uncle, and they moved out West soon afterwards. I see him on his birthdays and at Christmas, but nearly never besides that.”

Around the same time, tragedy had struck Marlene’s family. The flu had ravaged the nation for nearly two years, but it didn’t touch the McKinnons until it was on its last legs. Nearly all of her family died from it. 

“She had gone back to Massachusetts to see them, so I assumed she had died as well. I never received any news to contradict that, after all. It was a great shock when I saw her today. We’re just old friends. That’s all we are, really.”

For the months after the deaths of the Potters, Sirius had lingered in the city. He flitted from apartment to apartment, throwing wild parties, unable to bear silence where before there had always been beautiful, carefree noise. 

“Finally, three years ago, I decided to settle down. I chose West Egg because it was close enough to where James had grown up. It’s a place I can remember him by.”

He’d bought the grandest house on this side of the bay, adorned it with jade from China and rugs from Turkey and chandeliers from France. He made it beautiful and charming and luminous, but it was empty. He was the sole resident, and as the days went by, he could feel himself growing mad from the silence.

“So I decided to throw parties again. It had worked well enough when I was in the city, after all. I invite the whole of New York into my home, and I let them stay as long as they please. They keep me company, even the strangers. So that’s it then, Remus. No woman, no mystery. Just me.” Sirius smiles, but it’s a tired, weary one, the kind Remus sees on dying old men, not beautiful, brilliant young ones. 

“I’m so very sorry,” he says, clasping Sirius’s right hand. For the first time, he studies it—a gentleman’s hand, it’s plain, studded with ornate rings, but he can see smudges of pencil on the fingertips, the tell-tale markings of an embarrassed scholar. 

“Well, it’s all in the past now,” Sirius says wanly. “I can’t change anything, no matter how much I want to.”

“No, we can’t,” Remus says, and he thinks of his father, drawing his last breaths in the Argonne Forest. 

“Well, would you like to head back to the party?” Sirius asks, quirking a brow. “I’m sure Tonks and Marlene are both looking for you—you’re very charming, you know.”

“That’s the thing,” Remus says, and this is the last question he has for Sirius, one that’s been nagging at him for the bulk of the last three hours. “Why me?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why are you so—kind to me? Why do you find me interesting?” Remus stumbles over his words, grasping for some way to express his uncertainties. “You see, when you saw Marlene tonight, I thought for a moment that it all made sense. You must have heard somehow that I was friends with Tonks and Marlene, and you saw me as a chance to see Marlene again. But now that I know you weren’t looking for Marlene, it’s all jumbled up again. I’m just a poor writer from Minnesota. Why would you be interested in me?”

Oddly, Sirius looks nervous. He bites his lip and fidgets with one of his rings. “Remus, do you swear—do you swear that you won’t hate me?”

“Why would I ever hate you?”

“Do you swear?” Sirius looks like a frightened dog now, as though he’ll bolt out of the room at any minute.

“I do. Now, what’s this all about—”

He never gets the chance to finish his sentence. In an instant, Sirius’s hands are on his cheeks, and he draws Remus into a kiss.

It is, by all intents, quite a chaste one, no more than the meeting of their lips. But in that moment, electricity runs through his veins, and Remus realizes that this must be what poets write about, what artists strive for their whole lives to depict—this passion, this rightness, this feeling that nothing will ever quite be the same again.

Sirius breaks away, his eyes wild and panicked. Remus searches the deepest part of his soul for courage, and then, he kisses Sirius back. 

**viii. the incarnation, complete**

July flies by like a waking dream. Remus spends most of his days in the mansion—sometimes in the library, sometimes on the bay, sometimes in the sitting room. Always with Sirius.

The rhythm they fall into is a natural one. Sometimes, it feels to Remus like he has been searching for this all his life, this ready, altering love. And yes, love, because he knows now that he has irrevocably fallen in love with Sirius Black—with his smile, with his laughter, with the glint in his eyes, with his wit, with his courage, with his loyalty, with his fierceness. 

One night, when Dedalus has miraculously deemed himself too tired to play the piano and retreated to one of the mansion’s innumerable guest rooms, Sirius puts a disc on the victrola, and they dance together in their socked feet. Sirius is far better at it than Remus, who has never had any classical training, but it’s no matter, really—neither of them are concentrating on the steps, after all.

They spend hours strolling through the gardens, which Sirius admits he’s never actually paid much attention to before—he simply trusts that his gardener knows what flowers complement the surrounding scenery most. At this, Remus laughs, and he makes sure to bring some red tulip seeds along the next day to keep the daisies company. 

Every kiss is as wonderful as the first—as shaking, as moving, as breathtaking. He feels as though he is drowning and flying at the same time every time their lips meet, and Sirius is his lifeline, his anchor. He begins to write, finally—stories of men who lose everything but manage to find themselves again, steadfast girls who can move mountains with their love, creatures of the forest who are enigmatic and charming. He puts a bit of Sirius into every one of them, as though this is how they will come alive.

Remus knows, logically, that this is temporary. He is still a poor writer, and Sirius is still a beautiful wealthy man with a life of pleasures and riches ahead of him. But in the moments when they are making love, when Sirius is gasping, his back arched, _God, Remus, I love you, I love you, please, please,_ Remus can almost make himself believe that this is his future, that this will be forever.

**ix. the incorruptible dream**

It is late August when Remus breaks the news. They are lying in bed, the covers thrown over them haphazardly. Sirius is beautiful like this, lying on Remus’s chest, naked but for the white sheets, a Raphaelite vision. 

“I’ve been offered a position by Stanford,” Remus says gently. Sirius looks up at him through his long eyelashes, and Remus can feel his heart break.

“Oh?” Sirius shifts, moves in closer to Remus.

“Yes,” he says. “They want me to teach English. I think—I think I’m going to go.”

Sirius sits up now, his eyebrows drawn in consternation. “But that’s in California.”

“It is.”

“Well, there’s no reason you have to go,” Sirius says. 

“I need the money,” Remus says simply. He’s finally finished the short stories he’s been working on for years, but the money he’ll receive from selling them won’t be enough forever. 

“You don’t,” Sirius insists. “Look, I’ll support you. You can move in any day, you know—I’ve got plenty of rooms. You’re as good as moved in already. All you have to do is bring over your bags.”

“I can’t do that to you,” Remus says firmly.

“Do what to me?” Sirius cocks his head. “You know I can’t stand silence. It’d be wonderful, having you around in the nights and the days and not just the days.”

“Sirius,” Remus says, and wonders how he can explain it best. “I want to teach. I’ve always longed to.”

“But why Stanford? If you want to teach, I can find a position near here. I have connections at Columbia. I can have dinner with the chancellor, make him hire you.”

“But I don’t _want_ that,” Remus says. “I want a position that I got all on my own. And it will be a nice change.”

“So you’ll leave me behind,” Sirius says flatly. And Remus opens his mouth, but no words come out, because he will, won’t he? He’s going to leave Sirius in his big house with guests he hardly knows and hardly wants to know, and he’ll try to forget Sirius but he’ll never be able to get the image of his grey-blue eyes out of his mind. 

“Come with me,” Remus says suddenly.

“What?” 

“Come with me,” Remus says, more intently. “We’ll find a home in Palo Alto. You said Harry’s aunt and uncle moved out West before—we can go find them. We’ll do it together.” And now, the future is shifting—a future with Sirius, where he comes home from a long day of teaching to find Sirius in their library, studying the piano, and Sirius will teach him how to play, finally, and they’ll spend their evenings dancing and laughing and utterly in love.

“I can’t, Remus,” Sirius says. “You know I can’t. I can’t—I can’t leave this behind. I can’t leave James behind.” He looks at Remus imploringly. “This is all I’ve ever known,” he says, sounding broken. “I’ve spent my whole life in the East. And I hate New York now, for everything it did to James and Lily, but I can’t imagine ever leaving here. I wish I could, Remus. I really do.”

“I know,” Remus says, and he holds Sirius closer, because he wishes, still, that Sirius would. “I know.”

He presses a kiss to Sirius’s forehead and wishes for the summer to never end. 

**x. in the current, moving forward**

Remus leaves for Stanford, for California, in the morning. It’s far too late at night—even the party next door has died down, a rarity—but he’s still packing up the remains of his life in West Egg, the little baubles and trinkets. He’s said goodbye to the Tonks already, thanked them for their generous friendship. He isn't ready to say goodbye to Sirius yet. He doesn’t know if he ever will be.

There’s a knock on his door, and he hurries to open it. Likely Tonks, forcing yet another suit upon him—in the days before, her family has made it a mission to foist as much of Ted’s clothing upon him as possible. His suitcase is already fit to burst.

It’s not Tonks, though. It’s Sirius, looking tired and drawn and still so beautiful. In his left hand, he holds a suitcase—a grand one, embossed with gold and surely made out of leather, but a suitcase nonetheless.

“Well?” Sirius asks. A smile is tugging at the corners of his lips, as though he’s about to tell Remus a wonderful story. “When does our train leave for California?”

**Author's Note:**

> references abound throughout this fic to not only _the great gatsby_ , but also "in flanders fields" by john mccrae, "avalon" by al jolson, “dulce et decorum est” by wilfred owens, and “the dead” by rupert brooke.
> 
> kudos + comments fuel me! also, come find me on tumblr @ alifeincoffeespoons.tumblr.com!


End file.
